Today we got done swimming at about 5, so we needed dinner faster than driving home and cooking something on the grill (we usually eat between 5 and 5:30). We went to XIOS, the best local Greek restaurant, because Amanda can eat the gyros (and will eat lots and lots). However, I discovered when we got there that I hadn't brought any food for poor Luke! I am not used to having to provide actual food for him---one of the many benefits/pitfalls of nursing, I suppose.
I went to the grocery store next door and picked up some baby food for him (peas and rice, mmmm...) but he finished that and seemed to be still hungry! Eating everything in sight is apparently a boy thing: neither of the girls ever finished a jar of baby food in one sitting. The most appropriate finger food we had available was (drum roll please...) a french fry.
Michael broke off the crunchy bits and gave him the soft middles in small bites that he could gum to pieces. He loved them! For a while we gave him too many at once: his mouth looked empty, but he was hiding the pieces in his cheeks =) We gave him 4 small fries, which, considering the size of his stomach (I have heard it is the size of his fist) is quite enough for his first foray into fried foods. (ooooh, look at that alliteration.) It is interesting to think about how many french fries he will eat in his life, in what situations, and with whom.
Coincidentally, I am reading a book right now called "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes. His main point seems to be that it's not the fat, it's the carbohydrates that are killing us. It is surprisingly gripping reading---I find myself not wanting to put the book down as I read about medical studies, research personalities, and the way all these interact with public health advice. I find his main point compelling, but the main lesson I take away is to take all recommendations published about what we should and shouldn't eat with a grain of salt. Or a dash of olive oil, as you prefer.
I went to the grocery store next door and picked up some baby food for him (peas and rice, mmmm...) but he finished that and seemed to be still hungry! Eating everything in sight is apparently a boy thing: neither of the girls ever finished a jar of baby food in one sitting. The most appropriate finger food we had available was (drum roll please...) a french fry.
Michael broke off the crunchy bits and gave him the soft middles in small bites that he could gum to pieces. He loved them! For a while we gave him too many at once: his mouth looked empty, but he was hiding the pieces in his cheeks =) We gave him 4 small fries, which, considering the size of his stomach (I have heard it is the size of his fist) is quite enough for his first foray into fried foods. (ooooh, look at that alliteration.) It is interesting to think about how many french fries he will eat in his life, in what situations, and with whom.
Coincidentally, I am reading a book right now called "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes. His main point seems to be that it's not the fat, it's the carbohydrates that are killing us. It is surprisingly gripping reading---I find myself not wanting to put the book down as I read about medical studies, research personalities, and the way all these interact with public health advice. I find his main point compelling, but the main lesson I take away is to take all recommendations published about what we should and shouldn't eat with a grain of salt. Or a dash of olive oil, as you prefer.
Comments
But he beats one drum. The other drum is fat. Fat is not bad - as long as we burn it up (clear it from the bloodstream, actually) with exercise.
But if we do not exercise after eating fat, it floats around in our blood for 8 hours or so, making the arteries tight and twitchy, poisoning the endothelium, interfering with insulin action (contributing to high insulin level, which stimulate hunger - the 'other' stimulus to high insulin levels is carbonydrate), and promoting atherosclerosis.
The french fry is therefore a perfect example of everything that is unhealthful about the American diet: pure charbohydrate soaked in pure fat, fed to people to do not exercise.
The commonality is physical indolence: carbohydrate is bad for us and fat is bad for us *because we do not excercise* and because we eat more than we burn.
The solution is prolonged, repetitive, moderate excercise by a person eating lots of green and yellow vegetables, fair amounts of fruit, and lean protein such as eggs.
Dan
He is certainly beating one drum. He said in an interview that his wife accuses him of tracing all problems back to carbohydrates.
He does cite a study that tracked some pacific islanders who originally ate fish and coconuts (high fat) who moved to Australia. They had a much more active life in Australia, ate a lower fat diet, and had a much higher rate of heart disease. I expect that exercise and carbohydrate are not the only variables in this study, though.
He spends so much time showing that fat and cholesterol do not do what it has been claimed that they do in heart disease (often the problem came through oversimplification) that he doesn't get in to the actual harmful effects of excess fat.
Scientists continually fall for the 'post hoc, ergo propter hoc' fallacy, but in very complicated dialect (technically, called 'theory' if they believe it or 'hypothesis' if they don't quite) so that it's not apparent to the person who can't see the flimsly factual scaffolding upon which their interpretation is erected.
So we've focused on diet and disease and ignored exercise and disease, or failed to discriminate amongst variations in similar foods and thinking that processed foods are somehow the same as the same, unprocessed.
We've progressed dramatically from total ignorance of nutrition to biased knowledge of it in a mere 3 generations, while transforming ourselves from laborers to chair-warmers.
Fortunately, momming is not something that can be done in a cubicle...
Dan